Good news!!! After 1,5 months L’Obsolescence Programmée de nos Sentiments AND the Dutch edition Bloesems in de Herfst are going to reprint! We will have a new stock just in time for the festivals of the Autumn season. I’m very happy and proud that the book is read by so many people. Thank you, everyone, who bought the book. Thank you too, if you suggested the book to a friend. We are very grateful and lucky to have so many readers. The responses that we’ve had are incredible, it’s such a gift to know how the book touches and moves people in ways that we hadn’t anticipated at all. From the bottom of our hearts: THANK YOU! MERCI! DANKJEWEL!

FINISHED! The new book, my second graphic novel, is done. It took a long time. Longer than I wanted. In 2015, I met Zidrou for the first time in Brussels, at the Dargaud Benelux offices. He asked me what I wanted to draw, and I said: a love story. He had two scenarios with him, which we never used.

In the summer of 2015, I visited Zidrou in Spain to work on the book for a week. The beginning of the scenario was there. It was a romance between two older people. “Love after 60”, he said. I immediately liked it.

After feedback and corrections, the scenario was really finished in January 2016. Then I started drawing. And again. And again. I think I started over 10 times, always dissatisfied. I didn’t feel like it was going in the right direction. I hated my drawings and hesitated about everything. Maybe I was just not good enough at the time… But today, I’ve put the last strokes on my digital paper. And all my hard work has resulted in a book that I absolutely love! Perhaps my best so far … Yes, I think so. Hopefully you will feel the same 🙂

The French title is “L’Obsolescence programée de nos sentiments”, the Dutch is: “Bloesems in de herfst”. At the Stripdagen Haarlem (27/28 May) the Dutch edition will be presented, and in the weekend after, the French edition will be released during the comic festival in Amiens, with Zidrou. Of course I hope more translations will follow….

We will take a signing tour through France and Belgium in the summer, with Jordi Lafèbre, who presents his new volume of Beaux Étés with Zidrou. I am grateful to the teams from Dargaud Benelux and Ballon Media for all help and motivation they gave me. And their infinite trust ❤

This weekend I’ll be in the wonderful Valencia to sign my books “El regreso del hálcon abejero” at the stand of FNAC, nr B30. I’ll also attend a panel about creating independent comics on Saturday. See you there?

In October 2017, I visited the refugee camps on the island Lesbos, Greece, together with two other cartoonists. We drew the life in the camps, because photography and film are not allowed there. After my return, and quite an emotional rollercoaster, I made a 25-page comic called Europe’s Waiting Room.The comic was published in Dutch in coöperation with the Dutch newspaper NRC, and funded by the Pascal Decroos Fund for Investigative Journalism and the Dutch Fonds Bijzondere Journalistieke Projecten. Europe’s Waiting Room, has finally been translated to English and is now online on Drawing The Times, an international platform for graphic journalism. Click the link below and on the orange arrow to read the full story. And please share with anyone you think would be interested.http://drawingthetimes.com/story/europes-waitingroom/

For any translations, publications or exhibitions about this comic, please contact me ( aimeedejongh (A) gmail.com). I’m always interested in spreading the word about the story, because I think it’s an important one.

Pages from the comic are currently exhibited at the exhibition “Graphic Recordings” in Kampen, The Netherlands. For more info, see the post below.